Sacred and Profane Love - Arnold Bennett (digital e reader .TXT) 📗

believe you do,' he admitted; and he laughed. 'So I needn't explain to you that a thousand women dying of love for one man will not help that man to happiness, unless he is dying of love for the thousand and first.'

'And have you never loved?'

The words came of themselves out of my mouth.

'I have deceived myself--in my quest of sympathy,' he said.

'Can you be sure that, in your quest of sympathy, you are not deceiving yourself tonight?'

'Yes,' he cried quickly, 'I can.' And he sprang up and almost ran to the piano. 'You remember the D flat Prelude?' he said, breaking into the latter part of the air, and looking at me the while. 'When I came to that note and caught your gaze'--he struck the B flat and held it--'I knew that I had found sympathy. I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! Do you remember?'

'Remember what?'

'The way we looked at each other.'

'Yes,' I breathed, 'I remember.'

'How can I thank you? How can I thank you?'

He seemed to be meditating. His simplicity, his humility, his kindliness were more than I could bear.

'Please do not speak like that,' I entreated him, pained. 'You are the greatest artist in the world, and I am nobody--nobody at all. I do not know why I am here. I cannot imagine what you have seen in me. Everything is a mystery. All I feel is that I am in your presence, and that I am not worthy to be. No matter how long I live, I shall never experience again the joy that I have now. But if you talk about thanking me, I must run away, because I cannot stand it--and--and--you haven't played for me, and you said you would.'

He approached me, and bent his head towards mine, and I glanced up through a mist and saw his eyes and the short, curly auburn locks on his forehead.

'The most beautiful things, and the most vital things, and the most lasting things,' he said softly, 'are often mysterious and inexplicable and sudden. And let me tell you that you do not know how lovely you are. You do not know the magic of your voice, nor the grace of your gestures. But time and man will teach you. What shall I play?'

He was very close to me.

'Bach,' I ejaculated, pointing impatiently to the piano.

I fancied that Bach would spread peace abroad in my soul.

He resumed his place at the piano, and touched the keys.

'Another thing that makes me more sure that I am not deceiving myself to-night,' he said, taking his fingers off the keys, but staring at the keyboard, 'is that you have not regretted coming here. You have not called yourself a wicked woman. You have not even accused me of taking advantage of your innocence.'

And ere I could say a word he had begun the Chromatic Fantasia, smiling faintly.

And I had hoped for peace from Bach! I had often suspected that deep passion was concealed almost everywhere within the restraint and the apparent calm of Bach's music, but the full force of it had not been shown to me till this glorious night. Diaz' playing was tenfold more impressive, more effective, more revealing in the hotel parlour than in the great hall. The Chromatic Fantasia seemed as full of the magnificence of life as that other Fantasia which he had given an hour or so earlier. Instead of peace I had the whirlwind; instead of tranquillity a riot; instead of the poppy an alarming potion. The rendering was masterly to the extreme of masterliness.

When he had finished I rose and passed to the fireplace in silence; he did not stir.

'Do you always play like that?' I asked at length.

'No,' he said; 'only when you are there. I have never played the Chopin Fantasia as I played it to-night. The Chopin was all right; but do not be under any illusion: what you have just heard is Bach played by a Chopin player.'

Then he left the piano and went to the small table where the glasses were.

'You must be in need of refreshment,' he whispered gaily. 'Nothing is more exhausting than listening to the finest music.'

'It is you who ought to be tired,' I replied; 'after that long concert, to be playing now.'

'I have the physique of a camel,' he said. 'I am never tired so long as I am sure of my listeners. I would play for you till breakfast to-morrow.'

The decanter contained a fluid of a pleasant green tint. He poured very carefully this fluid to the depth of half an inch in one glass and three-quarters of an inch in another glass. Then he filled both glasses to the brim with water, accomplishing the feat with infinite pains and enjoyment, as though it had been part of a ritual.

'There!' he said, offering me in his steady hand the glass which had received the smaller quantity of the green fluid. 'Taste.'

'But what is it?' I demanded.

'Taste,' he repeated, and he himself tasted.

I obeyed. At the first mouthful I thought the liquid was somewhat sinister and disagreeable, but immediately afterwards I changed my opinion, and found it ingratiating, enticing, and stimulating, and yet not strong.

'Do you like it?' he asked.

I nodded, and drank again.

'It is wonderful,' I answered. 'What do you call it?'

'Men call it absinthe,' he said.

'But--'

I put the glass on the mantelpiece and picked it up again.

'Don't be frightened,' he soothed me. 'I know what you were going to say. You have always heard that absinthe is the deadliest of all poisons, that it is the curse of Paris, and that it makes the most terrible of all drunkards. So it is; so it does. But not as we are drinking it; not as I invariably drink it.'

'Of course,' I said, proudly confident in him. 'You would not have offered it to me otherwise.'

'Of course I should not,' he agreed. 'I give you my word that a few drops of absinthe in a tumbler of water make the most effective and the least harmful stimulant in the world.'

'I am sure of it,' I said.

'But drink slowly,' he advised me.

I refused the sandwiches. I had no need of them. I felt sufficient unto myself. I no longer had any apprehension. My body, my brain, and my soul seemed to be at the highest pitch of efficiency. The fear of being maladroit departed from me. Ideas--delicate and subtle ideas--welled up in me one after another; I was bound to give utterance to them. I began to talk about my idol Chopin, and I explained to Diaz my esoteric interpretation of the Fantasia. He was sitting down now, but I still stood by the fire.

'Yes, he said, 'that is very interesting.'

'What does the Fantasia mean to you?' I asked him.

'Nothing,' he said.

'Nothing!'

'Nothing, in the sense you wish to convey. Everything, in another sense. You can attach any ideas you please to music, but music, if you will forgive me saying so, rejects them all equally. Art has to do with emotions, not with ideas, and the great defect of literature is that it can only express emotions by means of ideas. What makes music the greatest of all the arts is that it can express emotions without ideas. Literature can appeal to the soul only through the mind. Music goes direct. Its language is a language which the soul alone understands, but which the soul can never translate. Therefore all I can say of the Fantasia is that it moves me profoundly. I know how it moves me, but I cannot tell you; I cannot even tell myself.'

Vistas of comprehension opened out before me.

'Oh, do go on,' I entreated him. 'Tell me more about music. Do you not think Chopin the greatest composer that ever lived? You must do, since you always play him.'

He smiled.

'No,' he said, 'I do not. For me there is no supremacy in art. When fifty artists have contrived to be supreme, supremacy becomes impossible. Take a little song by Grieg. It is perfect, it is supreme. No one could be greater than Grieg was great when he wrote that song. The whole last act of The Twilight of the Gods is not greater than a little song of Grieg's.'

'I see,' I murmured humbly. 'The Twilight of the Gods--that is Wagner, isn't it?'

'Yes. Don't you know your Wagner?'

'No. I--'

'You don't know Tristan?'

He jumped up, excited.

'How could I know it?' I expostulated. 'I have never seen any opera. I know the marches from Tannhaeuser and Lohengrin, and "O Star of Eve!"'

'But it is impossible that you don't know Tristan!' he exclaimed. 'The second act of Tristan is the greatest piece of love-music--No, it isn't.' He laughed. 'I must not contradict myself. But it is marvellous--marvellous! You know the story?'

'Yes,' I said. 'Play me some of it.'

'I will play the Prelude,' he answered.

I gulped down the remaining drops in my glass and crossed the room to a chair where I could see his face. And he played the Prelude to the most passionately voluptuous opera ever written. It was my first real introduction to Wagner, my first glimpse of that enchanted field. I was ravished, rapt away.

'Wagner was a great artist in spite of himself,' said Diaz, when he had finished. 'He assigned definite and precise ideas to all those melodies. Nothing could be more futile. I shall not label them for you. But perhaps you can guess the love-motive for yourself.'

'Yes, I can,' I said positively. 'It is this.'

I tried to hum the theme, but my voice refused obedience. So I came to the piano, and played the theme high up in the treble, while Diaz was still sitting on the piano-stool. I trembled even to touch the piano in his presence; but I did it.

'You have guessed right,' he said; and then he asked me in a casual tone: 'Do you ever play pianoforte duets?'

'Often,' I replied unsuspectingly, 'with my aunt. We play the symphonies of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Haydn, and overtures, and so on.'

'Awfully good fun, isn't it?' he smiled.

'Splendid!' I said.

'I've got Tristan here arranged for pianoforte duet,' he said. 'Tony, my secretary, enjoys playing it. You shall play part of the second act with me.'

'Me! With you!'

'Certainly.'

'Impossible! I should never dare! How do you know I can play at all?'

'You have just proved it to me,' said he. 'Come; you will not refuse me this!'

I wanted to leave the vicinity of the piano. I felt that, once out of the immediate circle of his tremendous physical influence, I might manage to escape the ordeal which he had suggested. But I could not go away. The silken nets of his personality had been cast, and I was enmeshed. And if I was happy, it was with a dreadful happiness.

'But, really, I can't play with you,' I said weakly.

His response was merely to look up at me over his shoulder. His beautiful face was so close to mine, and it expressed such a naive and strong yearning for my active and intimate sympathy, and such divine frankness, and